


Scalpels and Needles

by ArtificialWick



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Blood and Injury, Eye Trauma, F/F, F/M, I know in canon Nathan is younger than Mag but for this story they are about the same age, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mag is a Gentern AU, Marni is alive, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rated mature just to be sure, Surgery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27178700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtificialWick/pseuds/ArtificialWick
Summary: With her dream of becoming a musician shattered, poverty lurking around the corner and blind on her own Mag takes a drastic step. Surgery and a job that she wasn't expecting become the new center of her world. She works alongside Dr. Nathan Wallace as a GENtern and finds that life becomes interesting again rather quickly.
Relationships: Blind Mag | Magdalene Defoe/Marni Wallace, Blind Mag | Magdalene Defoe/Marni Wallace/Nathan Wallace, Marni Wallace/Nathan Wallace, Rotti Largo/Marni Wallace
Comments: 9
Kudos: 5





	1. Nutrix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially the Mag as a Gentern AU started off as a joke, following some art I made (linked at the end of the chapter notes) of her as one but then it got me thinking: what if? So I got settled and started writing.
> 
> In this AU Mag works as a Gentern to pay off her debt to GeneCo. She meets Nathan at work and they get on quite well, from there, both of their lives take an interesting turn. It's mostly written from Mag's perspective but I might weave in Nathan and others every so often.
> 
> Please note that I never have my work beta read. I take as much care as possible to take out any mistakes but if one slips past me, please don't hate me hahaha

Everything happens for a reason, she was always told by the few people surrounding her. Unfortunately, her life always seemed to take a turn for the worst, beginning with the very day she was born blind. When Mag had realized she was at the end of her rope this time, she had turned to the darkest corner of the world: GeneCo. Being granted sight was something she could not afford but all things come with a quick deal and a contract. Her age -nineteen- does not matter, neither does her name or wherever it is that she comes from, so long as she pays. 

Initially she has no idea where to get the money from but now she can see, it is an easy fix. Being hired as a GENtern had been the last job she had picked for herself but it is all she can do. She’s not medically trained, has never held anything more drastic than a band aid in her hands and is definitely not prepared for seeing everything that she was about to. Few GENterns have their degree for medical performances but do them anyway. This gives her a sense of unease and by the time she is told which head doctor she will be working for she is shaking like a baby deer with nerves. She doesn’t want to be responsible for someone’s demise simply because she doesn’t know what she is doing. Thankfully, it doesn’t come to this. Mag finds herself working safely as an assistant to the doctor who had initially performed the surgery on her.

In a way she is lucky, he is a nice man and they work together well. He teaches her things as he goes about his job and she is thankful for it. It grounds her and makes her feel less underequipped. Working with Dr. Nathan Wallace has its upsides in all of this, she muses to herself. He goes easy on her and understands that she was thrust into this without having a say in it. He mostly lets her calm down the patients, lets her tell them what to expect. 

Though, when the times do present themselves and she has to assist him during surgeries, she pays attention. Mag realizes quickly that she has a knack for remembering medical terms and procedures. This is unexpected as she doesn’t really know what she is good at, music had been her entire life until a year prior. She had never gone to an actual school, but had rather spent a long time bouncing around from orphanage to orphanage until finally being adopted by a drunkard who gave her the bare minimum of what she needed and then proceeded to leave her to her own devices. She didn’t spend a lot of time at home because of that, he didn’t care much for where she hung out anyway. Entire days were spent at the house of her best friend, talking and singing.

Mag sits in quietly as Nathan works his way through another transplantation. She is off to the side, mixing remedies according to the recipes she’s been provided with. Her hands aren’t nearly as steady as she would like them to be as she mixes a few drops of regular Morphine in with the Zydrate but, this will come as time passes by, Nathan assures her of this. 

“Mag, I am glad to have you as part of my staff,” he tells her one day as she is sterilizing his gear late in the afternoon after having finished up their last procedure for the day.

“You have been through surgery and once patients realize this too they have a tendency to calm down. To them, you are relatable, it helps them,” Nathan explains, she speaks to them in a humane manner, a lot less mechanical than is expected of her. She doesn’t act as the other GENterns do, she is not yet ruined by the standards of their society. Mag is very much a real human in a terribly false world, a gift.

She flashes him a kind smile at that and shrugs, she is just making the best of a job that she doesn’t want to have; that being herself is a help to anyone is a first. 

“Your surgery wasn’t a case of life and death, like it is for most of the people we treat here, why did you get it?” Nathan queries, locking eyes with her through her visor. It’s a personal question and he thinks he might have pushed it a little too far with the questions this time, as it takes Mag a while to respond. He has gotten to know her over the past few months and Mag is a thoughtful person, who takes her time and words what she thinks well. She is careful and a bit withdrawn but she has been opening up to him, at least he thinks that she has been.

Mag snorts uncharacteristically at the question. Being kicked out of the musical institute no matter how talented she was on the piano, and no matter how clear her voice was, in favor of a perfectly able girl had been quite the sting. On top of being unemployed she was also without purpose. 

“No one hires a blind girl,” Mag states flatly, giving no actual explanation and letting Nathan draw his own conclusions. She knows he has her file, he has it of everyone working under him. He could even look up her GeneCo documents that were drawn up when she had her surgery, if he wanted to know so badly. However, Nathan doesn’t strike her as the type of person to do such a thing.

Regardless of how good she had been at finding her way, the world is rotten and had rejected her a hundred times over. Running out of money, food and support, she was quickly ending up without ways to support herself. Life hadn’t worked out the way she wanted, at all. The only way to keep up and running was to get this surgery, so she had.

The conversation ends there, with the two of them closing down the rooms for the day and leaving in darkness. The elevator ride down is tense. Nathan had been the one to perform the surgery on her to begin with and Mag, good as she is at reading people, can sense that he somewhat regrets it then. By all standards, she is doing well at this job, but he can tell it isn’t what she wants and knows working for GeneCo is a far cry from a happy life.

Mag tries not to think about it; the minute she steps out the double doors she puts on her cloak and takes the longest locks of her hair out of the braids and buns she pins them to the back of her head with, she refuses to think about work. Hair isn’t supposed to fall further down than between the shoulderblades, in a weird sense of hygiene and practicality. Tying up her longest locks is the quickest way for Mag to achieve this, she’s not cutting her hair, she likes her long auburn waves too much for this.

One thing she can not get used to is the tightness of a dress that is way too short and the red visor on her face that supposedly protects her eyes. She doesn’t see the use of it if it doesn’t cover her nose and mouth as well but when accidents happen and something doesn’t go quite as planned, she is pleased that her eyes are protected from the blood splattering against what little shield she has. Washing blood out of her hair and off her cheeks is becoming a common occurrence and she takes solace in the fact that in twenty years from now her debt will be paid if she keeps this up. 

Unexpectedly, she is getting used to seeing organs outside of their bodies rather than inside of them -where they should be- she muses over a steaming hot mug of chocolate milk and whipped cream one night as she flips through the television channels. Every so often the screen goes static, but she takes it as it comes. She’s glad to even have the damn thing.

Every single penny she earns goes right back into paying off her debt. A decent television isn’t on her ‘items necessary to my survival’ list and this one came with the apartment she rents for a measly hundred dollars a month. The low price is courtesy of the rats that she can hear scurrying around underneath the floorboards and the thin walls that leave nothing to the imagination. Living next to a … bar -it’s more of a brothel really- is one of the last things she’d wanted but if it lowered the rent, she’d take it in stride.

Stopping her train of thought she focuses on the television again. While her mind had trailed off it had been playing a rerun of an opera that had been on play not too long ago, starring her boss’ one and only daughter: Amber Sweet. Mag finds herself grumbling, knowing exactly who she is looking at. Raising her mug she toasts it to the television, practically chugging her hot coco and burning the inside of her mouth.

“Cheers to the entitled abled, may they live long and be happy,” is her last coherent musing as she passes out on the couch and sleep overtakes her fatigued body.

It’s a short night, spent twisting and turning; seeing Amber on television having left her with thoughts of rejection. It’s hard not to dream of the day that they’d physically dragged her out of the auditorium of the musical institute while she begged and begged for them to keep her. Her voice was that of an angel, they said, but unfortunately money does buy happiness. The rich are entitled to everything and the homeless blind woman is expendable no matter how crisp her chirping is.

Calling Marni hadn’t been an option, she dreams, clutching onto her cellphone as tightly as she had done that day. The number she had of her once was out of use, Marni had moved out of the house she had been living in and that left her with little other places to turn to. Mag knows she is married to the very man that once cured the globe, Rotti Largo. She can’t reach her, there is no way. She has only one option left.

The television is still running when she wakes, the sound of her alarm going off from her bedside on the other side of the room being loud enough to get her to rise. Stumbling over to the accursed clock she turns it off. Mag finds herself stumbling down the stairs in a rush -all the while pulling down the short white dress as far as she can and nearly tripping over her own two feet as she pins her hair into place- not much later. She is late so she gets stuck in rush-hour, which in Sanitarium practically equals hell. She’s thankful she can see now but there are so many cars rushing past her that she might as well still get hit by one. The red lights don’t ever seem to stay red for long enough and Mag finds herself running like the devil is chasing after her, just to be sure.

Managing to be on time still surprises her. Nathan even offers her respite when he sees her rush into his office, entirely out of breath and spitting out one apology after the next. He calmly points over to the clock on the far wall -she has about fifteen minutes until their shift starts- and is quick to assure her that he wouldn’t have ripped her head off simply for being late.

“We all get stuck in rush-hour sometime Mag, next time just ring the front desk, they’ll let me know.”

Mag praises the heavens as she thanks him, knowing that had it been anyone else, she would’ve been in big trouble. Making her way out of his office and into the elevator she presses the button to go a few floors down, to where the lockers are, so she can put away her cloak and retrieve her much needed visor. 

She is midway through the apple she had brought with her -a breakfast to-go of sorts- when the elevator halts three floors early and the doors swing open. Inside step two bodyguards, both clicking their gun when they see her. The duo are followed by a wealthy man who she instantly recognizes as Rotti Largo and a younger looking woman with shoulder length wavy hair and a pale complexion. They are talking to one another and the way she is hanging off his arm helps Mag to a conclusion or two without even having to hear her speak.

As she stands off to the side, with her back pressed flat against the wall and her head bowed low in a form of respect, she wonders if Marni had recognized her when she got in. She doesn’t get to think about it for long though as the elevator dings and the doors open again. She squeezes past them with a soft apology and goes to find her locker at the end of the hall. The hinges scream as she opens the small twelve by twelve inches excuse of a thing, taking out her visor and folding her cloak, neatly stuffing it inside.

Inside the door hangs a small mirror, cracked in three separate places. Staring at her reflection through her visor paints her as red as the blood that ends up on her hands every day. Mag heaves a sigh as she fixes her hair so it looks a little neater before making her way back up by the elevator. Nathan has her on care-duty today, so she won’t have to deal with any surgeries; by itself this is a blessing but it does mean that she will be caring for people that have recently come out of surgery, mostly by herself. Replacing their bandages, making sure wounds are not getting infected, shooting them up with Zydrate should they still be in pain, supplying food and drinks. It’s the easier job but it is socially more draining. 

Mag has never been the type of person to mingle with people out of free will, a side-effect of growing up blind, but she’ll do it if it keeps her alive, off the street and out of the Repo Man’s hands. Though, her thoughts are running away from her today. Marni is so near to her and yet so far. Mag itches to go running to her, simply for the sake that she has missed her. 

“If there’s anything, anything at all, call me, alright?” she had said before Mag had moved out and into the musical institute. Mag had nodded as she grabbed her bags and left, blissfully unaware of the vipers luring around the corner, eager to bite her in the ankles and make her bleed, far out of her friend’s reach. 

Sighing she retrieves her cart and supplies from the storage closet. Staring down the long, entirely too long, hallway she starts making her way down. Left alone with her thoughts, it’s going to be a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things will pick up in the next chapter with some drama! I have only one chapter pre-written as of now and I have no idea how consistent updates are going to be but I definitely plan to continue writing this for a while. Any comments, kudos and thoughts would be welcome, they motivate greatly!
> 
> Here is the art I mentioned in the beginning notes: https://theblindsoprano.tumblr.com/post/632781008369074176/


	2. Caecitas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mag opens up to Nathan and is pre-occupied with her thoughts. Unforseen medical trouble arises. Scrambling and panicking she entrusts her future in the hands of familiars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning for Eye Trauma, if that's not your jam then proceed with caution. It's not overly graphic but I still want to put the warning out there. Also, my cousin is the one with the medical school degree, I am sort of winging it with google.
> 
> As a final, big thank you's to everyone who gave me feedback on the first chapters, quite motivational you all were. So you will receive a chapter, as a treat.
> 
> I'm updating fast now but don't expect it to stay as fast, I go back to work next week so I'll be a lot slower then, as I work full-time.

Days seem to go by quickly for a while. Mag’s put on care-duty every so often but when she expresses her discomfort at working by herself to Nathan, he puts her back on shifts where she assists him. She has surprised herself with this, having been on her own in a strange world for most of her life she had figured that the shifts where she works alone would only be easier for her but she finds that being left alone with her demons is too demanding. For now, at least.

She has bumped into Marni and -every single time without fail- Mr. Largo several times in the past few weeks. They are in conversation every time and even when Mag tries to catch Marni’s eyes, she seems not to see her. There has been one time earlier in the week where Mag thought she finally made eye contact but even if the attempt had been successful Marni had shown no signs of recognition.

“It’s that ridiculous visor,” Mag grumbles as she sorts through the supply cabinet, “we’re running out of antiseptic wipes.”

“Noted,” Nathan acknowledges, writing down the required amount. “What was that about your visor?”

“Feeling inquisitive today?” Mag counters, surprisingly playful in comparison to a minute ago, “are you sure you want to pry?”

“How are we on cotton balls and swabs?”

Mag rummages through the drawers for a little while but halts when her vision momentarily seems to flicker. Focussing on the cotton swabs in front of her the bright blue biometric corneas buzz, seeming to work just fine. She shrugs it off as perceiving a blink for blindness.

“All good, we could do with an additional set of tweezers however. Someone took the back-up one it seems.”

Nathan hums in affirmation and they fall into a slightly tense quiet. This is the second time they’re doing inventory together, and he purposely lets Mag find and identify everything as a way of teaching her the various names and functions of the tools they use on a daily basis. It’s proving quite fruitful.

“Mag?”

She turns and looks at him expectantly, “yes?”

“Your visor?”

She shakes her head, mentally scolding herself for letting slip any of her thoughts and knowing that if she starts speaking now she’ll have to tell him much more than she’d probably like to.

Mag sighs and closes the cabinet behind her, moving over to Nathan’s desk and sitting down opposite him. Her gaze finds the medical poster behind him that depicts the human heart and the names for all that it is made up of.

“There’s this girl I keep seeing around here, mostly in the elevator,” she starts, deciding purposely not to tell him she means she keeps running into their boss’ wife. “We were friends for a long time, she helped me get by, more so than the drunkard that adopted me.”

Mag scoffs, gaze moving to meet Nathan’s eyes. There is no judgement there, instead she only finds a silent invitation to air out her heart. “When I moved away to pursue my studies she told me I could call her if anything was amiss but when I tried I found that her number was no longer in use and that she had moved to another residence.”

She swallows thickly, “as it turns out she comes around here quite often and I don’t think she recognizes me, which, I suppose, kind of hurts me.”

Mag is never one to talk about her feelings so openly, not with people she doesn’t know all that well. The only person she’d ever confided in so much as she was now seemed to pretend not to know her, which caused a spiral of nasty feelings to rear its ugly head. It made her feel like she had been a burden for all the time she had known her. 

“So, I bet it’s that bright red visor that obscures it,” she adds jokingly, “it does hide a rather large portion of my face.”

Nathan chuckles, “I doubt that’s it. I can see you just fine through it.”

He slides the list across the desk toward her, turning it her way. “You see me every single day, Nate. If you didn’t recognize me you’d better be signing yourself on for an eye-transplant.”

It’s an attempt at a joke, a poor one at that, but he seems to get the hint and lets her off the hook. “Go find these in the storage, lowest floor, can’t be missed. If you take the last of anything, write it on the chart that is stuck to the door so it can be restocked.”

Mag mauls it over for a split second before gingerly taking the list and leaving his office. Going down to the elevator she catches the time, they’ve already overstayed. Their shift ended roughly an hour ago and things are going quiet. People are clocking out, leaving. Contrary to belief their specific department doesn’t work past eleven, they don’t take emergency cases on, the floor below them does. So the halls are dark, entirely silent save for the lit up posters buzzing away on the walls as she passes them by. For a hot minute she is concerned that she might run into Marni again, for it seems to be a terrible habit of hers. Her heart clenches painfully inside her chest at the thought of it but no such thing happens and she remains alone.

She frowns against a headache that sets in the minute she sets foot in the elevator. Closing her eyes momentarily to shut out the bright electrical light above her she waits for the ding signalling she’s ten floors below ground. Cold seeps into her bones and she can swear her eyes are wide open but the world stays dark.

Blinking a few times, reality sets in and Mag continues to trek toward her goal. The headache stays, reminding her that she needs to lie down and take a nap. So, she decides to make quick work of her task. She takes what she needs and checks if anything is running low, just to be sure.

Content with the way she is leaving it she turns on her heels, only to find the world spinning in front of her. Mag blindly reaches behind her where she knows is a storage rack and braces herself against it, pressing her forehead against the cool metal. Trying to get the world to settle and return to normal suddenly seems like an impossible task. There is a throbbing pain in the back of her skull that feels like it is about to split her very head open just about any second and her vision is flickering in and out again.

Mag quietly cusses to herself, forcing herself to breathe deeply in and out. She can hear her blood rushing in her ears and somehow manages to stumble her way through the hall. Familiar with her surroundings, she goes about blindly finding the right buttons to press when she gets herself into the elevator and leans heavily against the wall as she is brought back up.

“Nate-” she manages to croak out when she does get to his office, staggering through the door and making a mostly straight line for the chair she had been seated in earlier. He is instantly on high-alert, taking stock from her hands and helping her sit upright as she buckles forward against him.

He snatches off her visor and places a hand on either side of her face. Her gaze is out of focus and she looks terribly pale. She is frowning as if in a horrible lot of pain. 

“Mag, look at me,” he urges, watching her try and fail to meet his gaze. She whimpers softly, a clear signal that she is out of it. “Magdalene, I need to ask you a few questions, I need you to answer as best as you can.”

The usage of her full name brings her back to a vague state of awareness, nodding sloppily in agreement.

“Are you in pain?”

Mag’s hand unexpectedly flies up to the back of her head, and then moves to the bridge of her nose. 

“Can you see?”

No answer. He asks again, aware of the potential threat of her lack of speech. Then -and had he not been looking right at her he would have missed it- she shakes her head just barely.

“Headache- ‘m dizzy,” she fills in, voice sounding forced and hoarse.

Nathan curses to himself as he hoists her up and out of the chair, apologizing as he does. She is physically shaking in his arms as he carries her out of his office to the surgery room next door. He places her down on the bed and tilts it backward so she is laying flat on her back for the most part.

Mag is having a malfunction; they’re rare but do occur. Unfortunately they’ve yet to find out why these happen but he is so very thankful that it is happening now and not when she’s all alone at home. What he isn’t so happy about is that they’re pretty much the only two staff members still around. He could of course buzz someone up but it tends to be hectic during the night time and he doesn’t want to waste valuable time on calling someone when someone -no, his kindest employee- is potentially bleeding out internally underneath him.

Nathan works quickly, hooking Mag up to a heart-rate monitor in a matter of seconds. He momentarily glances up at her face, scrunched up in pain, eyes squeezed shut against the pain that is splitting her head in half. He can’t sedate her in fear of her slipping without him realizing, which is a terrible downside to this entire ordeal.

“I can’t make the pain go away or make any of what I am going to do less painful,” he reaches for one of her hands and guides it to the bed-rail, watching it almost instantly latch around it, knuckles turning white. “I’ll try to be quick, sorry Mag.”

Nathan talks her through it as he opens up her right eye and with expertise turns off the lens that keeps it working, doing the same for the left. “I’ve turned them off like we did before you woke up from surgery. I know you can’t see but the power being off should help with how quick the pain sets in.”

In truth it helps very little. Mag grits her teeth but tries to lie as still as possible, feeling that any sudden movements might not be very helpful. Nathan is moving around her and placing suction cups on either side of her head, something about needing to be able to see the hardware from inside.

“I’m going to send small jolts of electricity through, if your headache increases, please tell me because it means I’ll have found what I am looking for.”  
It doesn’t take him long because when he moves from her right eye to her left, Mag screams. It’s shril and it echoes and it’s a sound he doesn’t ever want to hear again. He mumbles a quick apology and continues to work while Mag whimpers away underneath his hands. 

It’s all he hears so he is completely unaware of the person coming up behind them. He doesn’t realize it until there is a slender hand on his shoulder. “Do you need help?”

Whipping his head around in surprise he’s expecting to find another GENtern there, but no, he is met with the sharp features of Mrs. Largo. Mag seems momentarily still at her voice but goes right back to sounding like she’s in pain the moment after. She’s vaguely aware of the two of them talking and someone moving over to her right side. Fingers brush against the back of her hand and are prying her fingers loose from the bar. 

Her grasp now tight on Marni’s hand she is certain she is crushing every bone in the woman’s hand. Organ replacements aren’t supposed to malfunction like this, they all know it and as he works Nathan can’t quite find out what caused the painful malfunction. “Sorry Mag, I’m going to have to set you up for a proper scan.“

She barely manages a nod, trying to focus on fighting away her headache instead. It doesn’t help, but it gives her something to think on that doesn’t include Nathan quite clearly stressing no matter how much he evens out his voice or Marni sitting right next to her holding her hand and murmuring sweet nothings to try and ease her pain.

It is how they pass the time for a little while as Nathan does the necessary work to get her scans. He checks everything, from her replaced corneas to the lenses and the wiring. Everything is still connected properly. The lenses are clean without scratching and there is no obvious cause for the flickering in and out. 

The calming words that she’s not internally bleeding out settle Mag’s nerves and the pain seems to fade ever so slightly, but perhaps she is just tired. Her grip on Marni’s hand loosens as Nathan is audibly trying to make sense of this rather rare occurrence.

“When malfunctions happen, and they rarely do, patients actually have something wrong with them; something has been misplaced during surgery or the organ we’ve placed in fails by itself but your biometric corneas are fine, Mag.”

“Well, she’s clearly not fine,” Marni starts, voice even but clearly defensive and worried, “she was screaming when I came in. I would hardly call that fine-”

“Pain’s going away,” Mag interrupts tiredly and barely audible.

“I am going to hypothesize for a minute,” Nathan starts as he finally sits down on Mag’s left, “I’ll need to ask you some questions, is that alright Mag?”  
“Ask away, ‘m not going anywhere.”

The first thing he’s asking her is how she has been feeling lately, and by lately he means the past twenty-four hours for the most part. Mag doesn’t see what good it does to be asking about this and she’d rather be leaving her demons out of this but he’s the doctor. If there isn’t a good reason for it, he wouldn’t be asking this. So, she answers, vague enough not to let on that Marni’s the one largely responsible for her current turmoil and that she may have been the person Mag had meant when she talked about her friend earlier.

“Have you experienced any flickering in your vision before now?”

“Not that ‘m aware of, why?”

Nathan is glad to hear that she’s more coherent now but still has his concerns, even if his hypothesis turns out to be true. Cornea replacements are relatively new so there’s little to go off of but he’s fairly certain he might be onto something. 

“I’m going to turn your lenses back on now, I have a visual aid to help explain. It’ll be like how it was post-surgery, Mrs. Largo will be covering your eyes with her hands so you don’t get overwhelmed by the lights above, alright?”

Nodding she feels Marni’s hand leave hers and the rustling of fabric alerts her to the fact that she’s standing up to lean over her. When Nathan’s done his work she feels two soft hands come down against her face and in the darkness her corneas buzz and whirr, jolting back to life.

“I think I’m okay,” Mag nudges by slightly turning her head upward but the hands don’t move away until Nathan tells them to move. The light is indeed bright but it’s less overwhelming than the first time they’d done this trick. Knowing what light looks like and knowing what to expect helps, Mag muses to herself. 

While Nathan is off grabbing the visual aid he’s mentioned earlier, Marni turns to her face her and there is a knowing look in her eyes, the very recognition Mag’s been seeking since she first encountered her. Now that her attention isn’t being taken up by her husband Marni has time to really look at her and Mag finds that she’s missed it. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again Maggie,” Marni says soothingly, “I never want to hear you scream like that again, not like this.”

Mag is at a loss for words by the use of the once familiar nickname and misses the playful insinuation entirely but she nods anyway, looking at her friend with wide eyes. The flickering is gone entirely which leads to curiosity. Nathan has a hunch and she wants -no, needs- to know. She doesn’t want these painful blackouts to become common.

“I have good news and potential bad news,” Nathan starts as he makes his way back, bringing with him a decently sized chart that depicts a side-view of a person's head and the insides of it. Mag brings herself to look at it as he explains about the optic nerve, and how her eyes work in connection to her brain. His conclusion is rather simple, “you’ve put so much pressure on yourself the past weeks -and especially the last few days- that you suffered a mild sensory overload. Your eyes couldn’t handle it, there was too much input going over your optic nerve and it caused a headache. The headache probably gave you stress which triggered a fail-safe, your vision went out to prevent a complete sensory overload.”

“It’s gone now but, that causes this much pain?” Mag is looking at him with eyes wide and full of disbelief.

“That is the bad news. Your optic nerve connects to the visual cortex, which is at the back of your brain; so yes, it can. You might be more sensitive to sensory input than others, although I’ll have to monitor that to be sure. I am sure we can work something out, I was keeping you on shift near me regardless.”

“Are you sure she’ll be alright?” 

Marni is concerned about it all and the consequences of Nathan’s hypothesis. For a Largo she has a kind heart, that much is clear. Looking at her he finds no ill intent in her features, this is genuine concern. Perhaps for a stranger a little too much but he will ask Mag about this later.

“I have thoroughly checked everything, all is in place and the pain has gone. Working next to me I will keep an eye on her, you have my word.” 

Mag sits up, pulling her dress down as she does, knowing that it has bunched up at her waist from all of the struggling she had done in an attempt to distract from unbearable pain. “I’ll be okay, Marns, I swear, I’ve made it this far. I’ll be fine.”

“Well,” Marni counters in a voice that sounds like she’s not quite done with the subject but knows that Mag in fact is, “if anything comes up, come find me. I’m upstairs most of the time, and by upstairs I mean Rotti’s office. He’s not around as much as usual lately... but that’s where I’ll be.”

Both of them can only nod, a bit uncertain of how to answer. Nathan is usually the one going up to office to speak with Mr Largo and even that is a high exception. Mag’s never been higher up than the floor they’re currently on. This is an open invite.

“Don’t feel like a stranger,” Mag finally responds, “you can stop by any time if you are concerned about my wellbeing.”

Marni looks only slightly offended at the insinuation that her caring about her friend is a mere ‘if’ but is cut off by a loud ringing coming from her purse before she can reply. Mag’s thrown out an open invitation for her to come by but she can’t quite take her up on it now because Rotti is on the other end of the phone, calling her and she really has to take this call.

She enveloped Mag in a hug rather quickly, giving a curt nod to Dr. Wallace and excused herself as she picked up the call on the way out. Mag stares after her as she vanishes and listens to the sound of her heels clicking against the tiles rapidly as she starts apologizing and explaining why she’s late to goodness knows what. Who has meetings past midnight? 

That’s all she catches before Nathan draws her attention back to him, “friendly with the boss’ wife?”

Mag sputters, voice catching and playfully whacks his arm. 

“Not at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, she's alright; sort of. I was going to stretch this and make it cliffhanger but that would've been real mean of me.
> 
> As always, any comments, kudos and thoughts would be welcome, they motivate greatly!  
> Here is the art that goes with this chapter: https://theblindsoprano.tumblr.com/post/633071502329315328/


	3. Satus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mag finds herself a bit pre-occupied but things tend to fall into place, or so she thinks. Chance encoutners seem to become her specialty and a world she doesn't want to be a part of is all but uninterested in her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I've said before, I'm a bit slower now, I've gone back to work and I'm watching over a friend's house and cat right now so unless the cat stays off my laptop, I don't have much time to write. Though, I'm compensating a little because this chapter is exposition heavy and a walloping 3k in length. 
> 
> Trigger Warning for physical harassment of the sexual nature, it's VERY minimal but it's there.

Mag can’t quite get over what happened and the realization doesn't strike her until she is midway through the bandaging of a patient. The wound-compress goes flying and Mag is stumbling through an apology as Nathan quietly takes over her job and finishes it for her. As he does he finds the time to compliment the job she has done on the stitchings, for her hands had been steady and the thread used is tight, pulling the open wound together neat and clean.

She takes the compliment even though her heart isn’t in it. The malfunction she had experienced has not occurred again since then but her thoughts have continued racing through her head like a whirlwind tearing apart houses. Every now and then she confides in Nathan and it helps for the most part. She’s decided rather quickly that she’ll take talking about it in stride if it means that her head doesn't split in half every time she thinks of Marni.

Having held onto Marni’s hand as tightly as she had, and having seen her, looked at her and being met with recognition and worry has awakened a lot of emotions over her once closest friend that she had assumed long dead. Part of her would have very much liked to keep them dead, it would honestly make life easier but even if anything, there's little avoiding Marni. Even when she doesn’t see her, the media and the news are both GeneCo controlled. She’s bound to see her face every now and then.

It had not taken her as long as expected before she had spilled the beans to Nathan that the friend she had mentioned before everything had gone to hell that night had indeed been Marni and that they had been as close as sisters would have been. Well, sisters with a little extra. The lines had long since blurred for her but she refuses to think -let alone speak- of it.

As a result when confiding in Nathan she leaves out the part of that one time where Marni and she had gotten quite drunk one night and ended up tangled in the former's bed sheets because that really isn't any of his concern but it does play a part in the way that she feels. Somewhere deep down Mag has come to the conclusion that that flame has never quite died and it's been sparked to life again at seeing her in the flesh.

“Sorry, I’m a bit distracted today,” she says, naturally switching tasks and picking up the paperwork Nathan had been filing. He doesn’t protest, Mag is bright and intelligent and he trusts her with it. She has gotten a solid hang of writing and her handwriting is neater than his by much, it’s readable for starters.

“I suppose you aren’t the only one,” he counters. Mag looks up and raises an eyebrow in question. He heaves a light sigh before focussing on the task at hand again, continuing to further bandage up their unconscious patient. Through observation Mag has learned that his silence doesn’t mean deflection, in fact, Nathan speaks more when he’s focused on his work than when he’s not.

“Before our shift started, Mr Largo called me into his office this morning to discuss the progress of our department, how the new replacements are coming along,” Nathan pauses to cut off the bandage strip and tape it in place. “Usually when he does call me upstairs it’s late in the afternoon and definitely not on a Monday, but that wasn’t the only thing off. Mrs Largo tends to come in later during the day, but she was there.”

When he had gotten there Marni had looked at him knowingly with kind eyes and a devious smile, almost as if she had known he would come by; which of course she had known, Rotti had probably told her in advance. He had felt her eyes on him for the entire fifteen minutes he’d been seated in front of his employer.

“When she’s there she’s usually sitting at her own desk off to the side, working on something else but when I got there she just stopped. I’m pretty certain that she studied me for the entire duration of me being there.”

Mag stops writing to glance up at Nathan with a soft smile. He’s cleaning off the several scalpels that they’d used earlier. If you’d asked Mag if she’d see herself assisting during a double mastectomy some time in her future, she would have given the person asking a firm no but as much as she loathes GeneCo and the way they handle things, there is beauty in surgery. Filling out medical files comes with intimate knowledge of patients and Mag can’t help herself from feeling a little lighter at knowing she’d perhaps helped a transgender person be a little happier today.

Happiness is in the little things, like catching someone’s attention. Looking ahead through her visor at a world tinted red entirely she’s pretty sure Nathan’s gone slightly red behind his mouthmask and glasses. 

“I don’t know if it has to do with me having helped you the way I did the other night -it probably does since you said you two were close friends- but before when I came in she wouldn’t give me so much as a second glance. She was always there alongside him or working simply in his office but she would look up in greeting and go back to her work. She didn’t now.”

Mag chuckles, familiar with the behavior. Once on Marni’s radar people had a tendency to stay there. To a degree at least, Mag mused only slightly bitterly. Watching Nathan ramble so uncharacteristically is amusing enough to her to indulge him in this conversation.

“We weren’t that close, you just did the right thing which, I am very thankful for,” she lies, evening out her voice like her vocal tutor had once taught her to do to mask stage fright. They’d been too close, but she doesn’t want to tell him that. Loving Marni had in a way always been like Icarus flying too close to the sun, it hadn’t ended well. She doesn’t want to tell him that either. 

Nathan is quiet at that, buzzing in two GENterns to take their patient back to his quarters now that his surgery is done. She goes over to the end of the bed and clips the filled out medical forms to the back of the bed before the other two have a chance to wheel it out of the room. When she returns to her desk they take away their patient with a -to Mag at least- raunchy air about them. Most GENterns are like this, she’s found out, and she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t want to be that way, ever. The most she’ll do is tease her head doctor, with words that is.

“Sounds to me like someone is getting friendly with the boss’ wife…”

At the mimicking of his own words he gives her a pointed look through his glasses, staring her down over the bridge of his nose. Nathan is thankful that Mag resumes her work, glancing down at the sheets in front of her and quietly picking up a folder from the desk in the corner of the room. Working here is like working at an assembly line, one patient out and the next one in and so on.

He would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that he is clearly crushing on Marni -even if it is just a little bit, she is goodlooking after all- but knowing that she is married makes him want to drop the thought. However, for now it would appear that he has praised the heavens too soon because it takes little time for Mag to speak up again.

“Things will work themselves out, with her at least. She’ll come to you, give it time. She’s seen you now, she’ll look for a way to get to you. It’s what she does.”

He misses the knowing wink that she throws him after the supposedly reassuring words. Having been friends with Marni does come with a few advantages such as knowing her process of thought; once she’s set her mind on something she will pursue it. That is a trait Mag has always admired, her friend doesn’t know hesitance and sometimes she wishes that she didn’t have as much of it as she does. 

“She’s always been that way, it’s how I got to know her.” Mag finds herself digging through her memories to find a somewhat happier memory in what had been a very bleak period of her life while she fills out the details on an upcoming eye transplant that they’ll be doing in about an hour from now. “Marni found me while I was out getting groceries, I think I was eleven or twelve, just moved in with dad; I suppose.”

Nathan doesn’t miss how she hesitates on the word ‘dad’ and decides not to ask, for now, waiting instead for Mag to continue talking. She sighs tiredly, “I got cornered by some creep wanting what little money I had on me. Blind and by myself I scrambled to get it but because I was scared I dropped it all, he hit me and I fell over. I half expected him to hit me again but the blow never came. Instead two kind hands gave me my money back and helped me up.”

Mag pauses writing, flipping the folder open to find a blank chart. “She kept coming back into my life, one way or another. If I didn’t seek her out she’d find me instead. It’s hard not to like her-” she abruptly cuts herself off there, “what I am trying to say is, don’t stress it. Once you have her attention, things will start falling into place.”

“One might consider this topic not fit for work, Mag,” Nathan grumbles back, voice a bit lower than usual. It’s serious but not serious enough for her to be worried. It is simply his way of letting her know that she shouldn’t push it. So she doesn’t.

Mag means what she’s said however. Everything will work itself out; even if she herself had a fairly hard time believing that a mere week ago. She and Marni had gone from zero contact to a smile and a nod when they run into each other by chance now. When Mr Largo is with her it’s just a knowing glance, but Mag takes comfort in the fact that at least she gets acknowledged now.

It’s hard not to let her heart beat faster and get her hopes up. She knows nothing will come of it with her and Marni, she had tried once and it hadn’t worked. It had started with the fact that she’d been sixteen and could not drink; not legally anyway. Initially she hadn’t had much interest in it -knowing full well what it did her absolute bastard of an adoptive father- but Marni had nudged her and smooth-talked her into it. She should have seen it coming, they both should have, but lightweight as she was and still is, she hadn’t needed much more than a drink or two to partially lose her inhibitions.

Mag had leaned forward, surprised by how close to each other they were already seated and brushed her nose against Marni’s. She’d leaned in further than she would have fully-consciously dared but had wanted to and kissed her; entirely surprised to find her friend returning the favor all the same.

She had woken up tangled in silken sheets and smelling like her very best friend who she came to realize -through a pounding headache caused by a light hangover- she loved very much and practically had since the moment she had met her. However the rational part of her had woken up that day as well and for the sake of all that was healthy Mag had begrudgingly decided not to pursue, knowing better than to saddle Marni up with a blind child for a girlfriend. After all, no matter how skewered the standards of society she had been sixteen and Marni twenty-two. The woman deserved better.

Mag had let herself get spoiled with breakfast in bed and a kiss on her cheek but had halted her there. She had explained her train of thought as rationally as possible and decided that it really should not happen again, that she was just a kid and not ready for anything else no matter what her heart told her to do. Falling into a panicked ramble at being met with silence she had continued to speak about how Marni deserved better and that she needed to find someone who’d be worthy of her. She hadn’t responded to that but Mag always had assumed, for her own sanity, that she thought the same of it. 

“Mag, I need you to go on a warehouse run, it seems they haven’t brought the organs over yet. We’ll be needing a set of 2A biometric corneas, preferably with brown irises. If brown is unavailable settle for something that comes close to it.”

Shaken from her thoughts, she stares up at him, mouth slightly agape as she processes the request. It takes her a hot minute but she rapidly closes up the folder and before Nathan can question it she is out the door, white heels clicking down the hall as she proceeds to fulfill his request. 

Mag doesn’t go down to the warehouse often but she’s uncomfortable every time, shooting a silent prayer up to whoever is listening that she doesn’t run into any of Rotti’s kids. They have a tendency to linger and she really doesn’t want to deal with Paviche again, who unnerves her in every way possible.

Luckily when she gets there the warehouse is deserted absent for the GENtern that is on duty and scheduled to be there to take her request and give her what she needs. Together they make quick work of it and Mag is on her way out the door before she can so much as blink, cradling a container with gorgeous brown eyes in the requested size.

When she is leaving it turns out her prayer has gone partially unheard as the second youngest Largo shows up. He is smiling that sickening smile and the two GENterns hanging off his arms indulge his every whim. It physically disgusts her that any sixteen year old boy can be this messed up but she doesn’t want to dwell on it. Perhaps he is distracted enough to not notice her so she tries to slip by him.

Her attempt fails because Pavi is slipping loose from the two GENterns very much trying to keep his attention. “Where are you going bella diva?”

His hand glides over her behind and Mag turns on the spot, trying her hardest not to visibly shudder. She gives him her widest and kindest smile, hoping that he can’t smell her discomfort but, of course he can. Pavi is leering and a finger traces her face in a manner most unpleasant. 

“You really were the talk of the town bella Magdalene-” he purrs, looking her directly in the eyes from behind his own fake face. “Better-a not get into too much trouble.”

His hand lowers from her face to her collarbone, pressing painfully through the thin fabric of her dress. Mag’s knuckles whiten as she clamps down onto the container in her hands as if it is a lifeline. Daring to take a step back she is relieved to find that Pavi is turning on his heels and walking away, the two GENterns following suit. “Fino a quando ci incontriamo di nuovo, Magdalene!”

With one final shiver she is speeding back down the hall to go back to where she is most comfortable, Nathan and her corner of the department. All the while her mind is racing. Pavi knowing about the incident with her eyes means the other kids know, it means Rotti knows. It means Marni mentioned it to them. Of course she must have, probably the very same night  
when she’d gone away as Rotti had called her. Mag doesn’t know why but the idea of them all knowing fills her with a sense of dread.

When she gets back it turns out their patient is already there and has since been put under by Nathan. As he gets to asking her what has taken her so long to get what they need she simply shakes her head and hands him the container without a word. Noticing the shaking of her hands as she gives the eyes to him, Nathan decides not to question her further and instead turns to get to work.

All and all the procedure runs smoothly. Mag manages to straighten out her behavior, feeling rather numb as she hands Nathan his tools. He is talking her through the procedure with the intention of teaching her but the most it accomplishes is grounding her. Listening to the lull of his voice keeps her mind present, even if what he’s saying specifically isn’t registering.

When they’re done and closing up for the night they run into Marni in the elevator. Mag can’t help but rouse herself lightly from her numb state at watching Nathan awkwardly inquire how she is. Mag is standing behind them and listening quietly to them talk as she fastens the cummerbund around her coat.

The movements of it draw attention as Marni turns to look over her shoulder, “you still have that old coat?”

“As you can see, yes, I do. You gave it to me, of course I kept it.”

A comfortable silence falls over them for a little while but when conversation does pick up again it’s light and comfortable talk. It doesn't last long however when both Mag and Nathan are asked if they want to stop by for tea sometime. When they take long to respond Marni jokingly adds that she can give them something stronger as well if it pleases them more, which shakes Nathan from his stupor.

"We are busy people, Mrs Largo, but I'm sure we can find an empty shift for you."

Marni can only laugh, "how does tomorrow sound? I can easily have your schedule cleared out."

Slightly taken aback he nods, "Tomorrow it is. Mag?"

She doesn't get much time to respond because the elevator dings, signaling their arrival to ground level. Marni is quick to exit when she sees her husband standing there and with that the date is set. If they can call it that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this was enjoyable! Originally I wasn't even going to add Paviche in this fic at all as he freaks me out for reasons but he just... made his way in. As he does.
> 
> Also, for the clever few, yes, the chapter titles are Latin and can be translated. Some of them give-away what the chapter is about.
> 
> As always any comments, kudos and thoughts would be welcome, they motivate greatly!


	4. Deprensus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mag and Nathan take Marni up on her suggestion to sit down together and share time. It's spelling out confrontation in a world Mag is not familiar with.

Invited over to the Largo estate Mag fiddles nervously with her dress as she makes her way past tall iron gates. She’s picked out the nicest dress that she owns but it’s simple and plain and just an ankle length black gown with thin straps over her shoulders. Her hair is loose and cascading down her back all the way down to her bum in long auburn waves. Her trusty cloak has gone over her form in favor of walking all the way on foot. Marni had offered her a driver but Mag prefered to walk and gather her thoughts.

It’s like she is in a different world all together. The houses are bigger than she’s ever seen them and they’re all barred off by tall walls, fences and guarded gates. Breathing in deeply she goes about finding number Genecoway fifteen, the one adres she’d been given. Naturally, it’s at the very end of the lane, the biggest mansion she’s laid her eyes on so far. 

Gulping, she approaches and when the henchgirls posted on either side of the gate don’t stop her she marches up the pathway to the double doors. She doesn’t need to knock or ring because by the time she has her hand up to knock the door opens and she’s met with a bright smile and an unexpected welcome hug. It eases the worry gnawing away at her previously fraying nerves rather quickly as a maid comes up to take her cloak before making herself scarce. 

Marni leads her into a rather spacious living room. “We were just talking about you,” she says as she gestures over to the sofas arranged in a semicircle at the far end of the room, near the floor to ceiling tall windows from where one can easily overlook a massive garden. Nearby she spots a grande piano and a fireplace, above which hangs a massive portrait of Marni and her husband. In it, her friend is dressed all fancy like some Victorian noble woman and it suits her a little too much, Mag muses as she sits down on the sofa opposite Nathan.

“She was concerned about you, again,” Nathan notes with a hint of amusement in his voice.

“You’ll be glad to know then that nothing worth worrying over has occurred,” Mag adds as she sits down, reaching up to move her hair so that it’s falling over her left shoulder instead of getting stuck and tangled between her back and the sofa. “No flickering vision and no headaches and no-” she continues, looking up at Marni who’s giving her a knowing look “I’m not hiding it, promise!”

Marni’s stern look dissolves into a kind laugh as she goes about pouring Mag a cup of tea, the smell wafting over in her direction telling her that it’s her favourite. While settling in Mag has some time to think this encounter over, from the strangeness of suddenly being together in the same room again as friends to Marni having remembered what tea she liked and being served that very same tea.

All she feels is relief. Relief to know that Marni is concerned for her. Of course she is, she has shown that so many times before already but, even now it is comforting to know that at least someone thinks of her and wants her to be alright. That she’s been in someone’s thoughts, even when she isn’t around.

Observing the scene, she’s glad that the other Largos aren’t home and that it is just Marni they’re in the company of today. She had Amber Sweet storm the department the other day demanding yet another surgery and it had taken every fibre of her being not to shoot her down; both for personal reasons and the fact that being entitled enough to demand it over someone who actually needed it rubbing her in all the wrong ways. Just when she thought she couldn’t hate that rich brat more than she already did the universe loved proving her wrong.

Tea is a quiet affair with occasional chatter and banter. Nathan comments on the length of her hair and having no idea it even was this long, wondering out loud how she manages to pin it up as high as she does for work. This draws out genuine laughter from both women as they discuss lightly how both of them manage their mane. From there conversation starts flowing freely and Mag finds herself partaking actively in it instead of sitting on the sidelines and letting others do the talking. She’s comfortable, surprisingly so, and it shows in how light her heart feels. Conversation feels much like olden-days and every so often Mag finds her eyes fluttering shut, taken back to happier times when it was just Marni and her against the world.

Time passes in rapid speed until it slows tragically when Marni turns to Mag and asks her the question she’d forgotten she was dreading being asked.

“What have you been up to these past four years? The surgery aside of course.”

Going stiff under the gaze of both Nathan and Marni, it takes all of her strength to stay seated and not run. Feeling slightly embarrassed at her failures, she shifts uncomfortably. Both of them notice this and Nathan realises all too quickly that he might know more than Marni does. No, he  _ does  _ know more. Mag has confided in him plenty of things. He knows about Mag having tried to reach out to her and failing, rough years on the street and making very little money and a surgery she had very reluctantly taken just to live. He knows, from her file that he’d glanced over once, that she does not live in a very pretty part of town and that it’s a miracle that she’s as sane and alive as she is.

It is dead-quiet, the tension in the air thick enough to be cut with a blunt knife. It’s as if someone’s placed a loaded gun on the table and they’re the unwilling participants in a game of Russian Roulette. No one wants to call the first shot. Nathan doesn’t want to interrupt or deflect the question like it hasn’t been asked. Mag looks like a cat caught by a rabid dog, unwilling to answer and Marni looks… surprised? No, that’s not what to call it. She looks upset? That’s not quite it either but does describe the way she’s staring at Mag better. 

Marni doesn’t inquire a second time, quite good at reading Mag’s body language from the years they’d spent together. Silence reigns a little longer and just as Mag breaks eye-contact to stare at her own fingers as she chips away at her black nail polish Marni uncharacteristically starts to apologize, sensing for herself that she should have done more instead of asking her now, after years have passed.

“I should have reached out to you, Mags, I’m sorry.”

When Mag does still in acknowledgement but continues to look down, she continues, “I never should have left you the way I did. I- we, should have never broken off all contact the way we did. I’m so sorry if things have been rough on you. I tried to find you but I couldn’t. The institute told me you’d been told to leave but they had no idea where you were and I could not find you for the life of me...”

Marni isn’t a woman who usually apologizes for the things she does and Mag can tell that her response is genuine. When she meets her gaze again all she sees is concern and she gives Marni a watery smile in return. Swallowing thickly she is glad when the conversation shifts again and to something much lighter. 

The arms of the grandfather clock standing in the far corner of the room go round too fast and by the time the Largo kids arrive home they are well into the afternoon. There’s commotion in the hallway, mostly the sound of Amber kicking up a fuss as the trio come waltzing into the room. Luigi stays lingering by the door, a look of disgust on his features as he looks at his siblings. Marni turns to Amber to listen to her and Pavi is midway through the room when his eyes land on Mag.

Both Nathan and Mag feel like this is their cue to leave. The feeling made stronger for Nathan as he sees the way Mag stiffens in response to the way that Pavi is leering. She’s quiet and fidgety like she had been the day before when he’d sent her to retrieve that one pair of corneas. He wants to comfort her in some way but isn’t sure if it’s appropriate or if she’ll appreciate it, so he files the thought away for later and instead hopes that she’ll ease up sooner rather than later.

Marni, despite being preoccupied by listening to Amber rant on about how her stylist had disregarded her wishes completely and just generally being a bratty pre-teen, notices this all the same and ushers the kids upstairs with their respective maids to prep them for dinner later that night, or so she says. She has to physically herd them out of the room and hectic as the display is she manages just fine.

This is when Rotti makes an entrance -dressed in a fancy suit as always- and if the look on his face is anything to go by it would seem he is clearly surprised to see two members of his personnel in his home. He masks this surprise quickly by giving them a kind greeting. Mag thinks it feels a little bit cold but doesn’t get much time to think about it.

Nathan picks up conversation with him in no time, knowing from experience how to best speak to him. Beside her initial hiring Mag hasn’t spoken with him much and feels rather uncomfortable to say the least. To her this feels the same as any hallways or elevator encounter. She is there but she isn’t being spoken to and as such, she is expected to stay quiet until she is. Conversation with him feels stiff at best and entirely forced at worst. Marni gives her a sympathetic glance and a smile that tells her that it’ll be over soon, that conversations like these never last long. 

She’s right of course. It isn’t long before silence re-introduces itself and Mag interjects that she should get going, that it is late and that she has to be up early for work the following morning. In truth she doesn’t even have a shift scheduled. Neither does Nathan -both of them have a walloping three days off- and yet he hops in on her excuse to leave. 

“Very well, we won’t keep you,” Rotti concludes, ever the charmeur, “so much work to do and so little time.”

Ushering themselves past him and Marni they exit into the hall and go about retrieving their respective coats. Mag tries her hardest to ignore the soft risen voices coming from the living room but her hearing is entirely too keen from years of having been reliant on it. So when Marni says something that sounds an awful lot like annoyance over supposedly not being allowed to keep her own company and that there’s a better part of society out there for her, Mag’s heart clenches painfully. She doesn’t even notice the feeling of being treated like a lesser person that is starting to creep its way into her bones until Marni’s heels clicking loudly against the tile floor alerts her to the fact that she’s headed their way, shaking her out of her daze.

“Please allow me to see you out? Make sure you get home alright?”

Marni poses it like a question but in truth Mag knows it’s an excuse to get away from the situation she’d just walked out of. Fixing up the cummerbund around her waist and tightening it a little too hard she lifts her face to meet her eyes. “If you insist.”

She doesn’t have to answer that she does insist and she isn’t given the time to do so either because the three of them are interrupted by Rotti’s voice floating their way from the living room as he makes his way over as well. Any trace of the argument that Mag had heard him have with her friend not even a minute ago is gone entirely and something in her gut is telling her something is off about him, about this entire situation.

“Marni, sweetheart, we’ve scheduled a dinner, you should really be getting ready upstairs. I am sure that Dhr. Wallace and Miss Defoe can find their ways home respectively.”

“Oh but I insist to see them home,” Marni counters, sweetness lacing her voice in a way that Mag knows to be manipulative, meant to get him to sing to her tune. Rotti however, won’t give in so easily.

“We will call them a cab, you know our driver is very careful and will see them home in one piece,” he retorts, using the same tone of voice that she is but in a much calmer manner.

“It won’t be the same, dear, please?”

Marni’s making big doe eyes at him and it takes a minute but he does give in. “Very well, who am I to stop your never ending kindness. Take the girls with you, we wouldn’t want anything to happen now would we?”

At getting her way Marni gives him a quick kiss before snatching her coat off the rack and slipping into it in one fluid motion. She leads Nathan and Mag outside, closing the door behind them. Down the path up to the house already awaits their carriage for the night, a matte black limousine that is relatively short in length but perfect for them today.

The door to the back is opened by one of the two henchgirls that Mag had seen earlier, posted by the gate. Their blue lips are drawn in a tight line and their eyes are hidden behind their shades. Marni ushers the two friends into the back and climbs in after them, gracefully plopping herself down between both Mag and Nathan. The henchgirls get in behind them, seating themselves on the seats opposite them.

“Mag,” Marni starts softly from beside her, ”where do we drive to?”

It’s then that Mag notices that the window separating them from the driver in the front has been rolled down, revealing a younger woman with tall white Marie Antoinette style hair and a black mask covering the lower half of her face. There’s no judgement on her features, nor any other emotion. She’s giving Mag a blank stare as she awaits instruction. She doesn’t want to give any.

Mag swallows once, visibly nervous, “Gray district, Viam Mortis number three.”

The driver nods, window rolling back up. Mag is vaguely aware of the motor rumbling quietly and the gentle rocking left and right as they drive over the roads. She doesn’t turn to face Marni, knowing full well that giving away where she resides tells her everything she had been eager to know before. Where had she been? The outskirts of town, hiding between people barely getting by. Death hanging over them in the form of thick black clouds blocking out the light of the moon and vulgar displays as if every day is a person’s last; which it often is for some days the amount of corpses littering alleyways that everyone seems to willfully ignore seems to grow by the hour.

Mag’s embarrassment eats away at her in silence as their transport continues rolling down the lane, her eyes trained on the buildings passing them by as they leave the better parts of Sanitarium behind them. Her heart is pounding rapidly and it takes all of her willpower not to physically start freaking out, her only form of containing the chaos inside of her being the breathing exercises her vocal mentor had once taught her.

She is so preoccupied with her thought process that she doesn’t notice the way Marni’s hand has found her own hidden away underneath the fabric of her cloak, holding tight with their fingers interlaced in a comforting way that spells out nothing but understanding and comfort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while! I basically work at our country's version of Amazon so it's been hectic and busy and I haven't had much time to work on this. It's also why it's slightly shorter than my usual. I hope it was still enjoyable however!
> 
> Oh and yes, I did intend for the driver to be the same one driving Mag's car in the movie, the one we see pre-Chase the Morning.
> 
> As always any comments, kudos and thoughts would be welcome, they motivate greatly!


End file.
